If you looked at my previous blog you saw a video clip of our home. I noted in it, this it took me 5 days of working on trying to figure out how to upload this. I used to think I was a pretty computer savvy person. When I was working 12+ years ago, I was often the go to person on how to figure out things. Unfortunately, that label no longer falls anywhere in my personal description.
We now exclusively use Mac products in our home, the transition was tough and there definitely are some differences I still have problems navigating through. The other issue seems to be there are so many things you can do now on a computer; really cool things that I have no idea even about.
Jen and Katie's school gave them Macbook computers to use in 7th and 8th grade. This sounds totally awesome for kids, and mine were quite excited about it. They quickly learned that the programs the school uses are ones they never knew about and had to figure out how to navigate around in them.
Jen and Katie now have their own blog sites where they post some of their homework. They are now on Goodreads to track the books they read. They exclusively use Google Chrome to navigate their daily school lives. Homework assignments are listed in their email. Jen's choir teacher sends "gentle reminder" emails to remind the kids to check his homework calendar that has a link to a musical note quiz website, then take a screen shot of it, and finally put it in an online drop box for him to review. I don't even know what a drop box is!
There are so many ways to keep yourself completely structured and organized on a computer. Jen's English teacher has all these template links to for her writing, reading, and word study homework. She just types away and it automatically saves it and her teacher can access it to review at any point. He is quite organized and probably even has a way to see when they do their work, most likely he can figure out who are the procrastinators! It's quite amazing, but some of this can be quite confusing for a new kid who basically used a computer to type in word and play games.
No composition books, no note taking on paper, it's a totally technological world at the Singapore American School.
School has been in session here for 3 weeks and the girls are starting to get a handle on not using a pencil or paper. Amazingly, they have just touched the surface of all that is out there. I have a hunch quickly they will surpass my low level and knowledge and soon enough I will be asking them for help.
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